My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor, indexer, and proofreader. This blog is my website.

You'll find my rate sheet and client list here, as well as musings on the life of a freelancer; editing, proofreading, and indexing concerns and issues; my ongoing battles with books and production; and the occasional personal revelation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

If you want to get famous writing, you have it all backward. To be a famous published writer, you should be famous first.

I'm working on a book now that, to put it mildly, is poorly written and poorly organized. Illogical at times, cutesy to the point of distraction, and many, many cases of wrong word usage which show a certain lack of higher-functioning literacy. Yet this book is being published by a publishing house that sells millions of books a year. Millions, I tell you.

How does this happen?

Simple. It was all summed up for me at the 2006 convention of the American Academy of Religion. There was a panel discussion on getting published; the people in the audience were largely folks who were finishing up their dissertations and wondering how to parlay that achievement into a publishing deal. The panelists were from Doubleday, HarperSanFrancisco, Oxford University Press, Westminster John Knox, and one other press that I forget. In answer to the basic first question, "How do I get published?" the guy from Doubleday said -- and all the others agreed -- "When you come to us, the first thing we'll want to know is what is your platform."

I didn't know what he meant at first, but then it became very clear. "Because of who you are, what your title is, how many people you know, and how many people know you, how are we going to be able to sell your book for you without us doing a damn thing?" In other words, since we as the publishers cannot commit time and energy to your book, you'll be selling it yourself. So, if you want to be a famous author in this environment, concentrate first on being famous; then worry about the secondary writing-a-readable-book nonsense.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

I've got to watch it here, because I'm trying to circulate knowledge of this blog through, if nothing else, including it on my email signature. Maybe someone other than Moi will read it. If you're out there, anybody, throw me a bone, willya?

Today's thought comes from a book designer that Moi and I work with: "Lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency on my end." Good thing to remember, but then there's the customer service side of the business which recognizes that things happen. But imagine this.

I heard a few weeks ago from a freelance book packager/editor who used to call me occasionally on behalf of a particular Well-Known Publisher for whom she labored. I say "well-known" not to boast, because it's really nothing to boast about, but if you've looked at my client list, let's just say that the names are not ones that readers in nonacademic fields have heard of.

(Side note: my wife looked at my client list on a little marketing piece I had created recently and said, "Industrial Hydro-Blast?")

So, anyway, now this book packager is an off-site full-time employee of this same publisher, and she emails with a possible job. The publisher has a 2000-page book/manual on psychology that's coming in for proofreading. They have 2 weeks to get it all read and ready. In order to get the work done, they are splitting up the work among 4 different proofreaders, 500 pages per head.

The only way a 2000-page book must be read in 2 weeks is that someone up the line fell down on the job -- author, in-house editor, etc. Certainly no publisher plans for that. And the later you get in the production cycle, the more someone's going to have to step up and bail someone else's butt out of hot water.

Or in this case, four people.

And naturally, I feel that this is an unfortunate maneuver. Splitting up a function like this isn't as bad as splitting up a copyediting job among two or more people, because hopefully all the proofreaders are of a similar skill set and will be catching the same types of errors. Not too many judgment calls at the proofreading stage. But still. And I fear that such a job will be accompanied by style sheets galore. I have discussed in earlier posts my disdain for style sheets.

And imagine yourself as the typesetter, dealing with four sets of handwriting, proofing symbols (standardized, of course, but everyone's got their own quirky way of doing things), and style.

Another curiosity is that the job is being paid by the hour. Would be interesting to see on the back end if there is a wide variety of hours submitted, and also correlating that to quality of work done.

At least it should be interesting, being about psychology. At least it's not theology . . . not that there's anything wrong with that.

Well, dear reader(s), it's time to go to bed. It's almost Wednesday. So far this week, beginning Sunday morning, I slept from 12 noon to 2pm Monday and from 12:30am to 6:30am today. Which means I've gotten 7 hours of sleep in the last 67; is that math right? I'm amazed I'm still at it. I've done an index on St. Francis of Assisi, copyedited most of a book on being a Buff Dad (don't even ask), mowed the lawn, and maybe done one or two other productive things.

Going to Connecticut next week to see our younger son, and thence to Vermont for a few days. I'm trying to line up some work to take, to kill time in airports and also to read while on break, because then we come back and after a day or two go to Chattanooga to watch our older son play the lead in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Neither son has expressed an interest in entering the family business. For that matter, neither did I, but that was when the family business was being a car dealer.

Edward M. Welch, in “The Church Was Right about Capitalism,” noted the problem in a short article in the Jesuit weekly America. He concluded: “One does not get rich by taking moneyfrom the poor. They do not have much money to take. You get wealthy by taking from the middle class. Perhaps taking from the poor is more of a sin, but the problem will never be dealt with until the majority in the middle realize that they too are being victimized.” (Crosby, Finding Francis, Following Christ, Orbis Books, 2008)

Friday, October 5, 2007

My wife, who suffers through far more of the type of information sharing and complaining that I provide on this blog, works at Barter Theatre, the state theatre of Virginia. The relationship has been mutually beneficial for the theatre and our family. The theatre benefits because she is passionate about, and thus excellent at, what she does for the organization; we benefit not only because we get to see a lot of plays for free or for discounted rates (I am also nominally an employee because of some publishing-related duties I do for them), but because of our association with the people of the theatre, who represent much of our social group, and because of their influence and the example they set for our sons, both of whom are interested in performing.

Having said that, we saw a play earlier this week, and will be seeing it again tomorrow, called Doubting Thomas. It is the world premiere of this piece, with four fine actors and directed by my wife's boss, who is responsible for just about all my favorite plays up there over the last few years.

Why does art imitate life? Because it's a play about theological arguments. Without going into the details (don't want to spoil the show for those of you who might see it over the years), it deals with the conflicts of an about-to-be-married couple, a pastor, and a professor of comparative religions. In other words, the script sounded a lot like much of the reading I do, which gave me an interesting perspective. A little more specifically, if you're familiar with the output of Pilgrim Press (of the United Church of Christ), you'd see a lot of similar themes.

But what a great show, its content overlap with my real life notwithstanding. The show has grown on me since its first viewing, and I am looking forward to the performance tomorrow, when we'll be taking one of my publisher friends from northern Virginia to see it.

Another content note: Dedicated readers of this blog (you know who you are, or is) will remember my ongoing issues of working on books I don't understand. I am proofreading a small book dealing with Christian faith, and call and response, and the author is talking about going to a jazz club in Memphis. He has misspelled the names of Dizzy Gillespie and Wynton Marsalis, and he has gotten wrong the name of a John Coltrane piece. The copyeditor missed them too. I am gleefully correcting these items, with a side note to the managing editor, informing him that I am finally in my element.

The good news, too, is that this managing editor is my pal who sends me most of the impossible jobs that I work on. This one is an easy little proofread. He realizes, I think, that it's time to reward me for the hell I've had to slog through over the last year or so.

Just so this blog doesn't seem like a perpetual tale of woe: I'm presently indexing a very interesting book, Preacher of Righteousness by Joshua David Hawley (Yale UP). The topic is the intellectual development of Theodore Roosevelt.

The initial image in the book is of the ferry going to Staten Island the day after TR was born. I'm not sure yet why this image appears, but as a Staten Islander, it made me smile.

(And props to Yale: they voluntarily went up on their indexing rates a few months back. Other publishers, take note.)

Another productivity note: The books I work on that mysteriously float to the top of the stack are those that (a) are interesting, (b) pay well and quickly, and (c) are easy to get off my desk. (a) and (b) certainly influence (c).

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I received a call today from Book Packager A working with Book Packager B, who had sent me a job for copyediting and indexing. Book Packager A ended up farming out the proofreading work to another individual. No problem there.

A asks me if I had developed a style sheet for the book that the proofreader could use. I responded that I follow Chicago 15 and Merriam Webster's 11th Collegiate.

In some cases, copyeditors and/or in-house editors will develop a style sheet for a particular book. A publisher may develop a style manual for the press, or a magazine will do the same. The style sheet indicates decisions made by the editor to indicate particular word usages employed in the editing of that particular book. The purpose is to ensure editorial consistency.

My opinion, shared by many who actually labor in the fields, is that style sheets are often as worthless as, as they say, tits on a bishop (well, maybe in these days and times, such a reference no longer holds true, for many reasons).

Style sheets serve no purpose if all they do is echo other accepted reference works, such as Chicago 15 or MW 11. There is no reason for me to keep a list of word treatments that one can find spelled correctly in a dictionary.

Another thing: when I'm proofreading a book and I receive a style sheet, as often as not, the copyeditor has not followed through on the decisions that he or she (or per) has made, which simply leads to confusion.

After telling Book Packager A in three or four different ways that, indeed, there was no style sheet and explaining why, I began to feel that the call was a waste of my time. I grew less apologetic as each minute passed.

Somewhat exasperated, my caller tried another tack: "What about the medical and scientific terms? Certainly you kept a list of those?"

"Nope."

Silence.

"I checked the terms that needed checking and ensured they were correct and treated them consistently through the manuscript. That's all I can say. I don't generally keep style sheets for all the reasons I have mentioned."

A lazy person's style sheet, and actually quite a functional one--especially for proper names, foreign words, and words that might be particular to a specific field--can be presented in the form of a custom dictionary created from a spell check. One rather enlightened publisher I work for requires that I submit a custom dictionary with any electronically copyedited manuscript. Custom dictionaries are wonderful for uncovering inconsistencies in spellings.

And style manuals from publishers are also typically losing propositions. As a friend said today, they are often created by a staff editor who feels that "We need a style manual," so everyone puts a lot of effort into it, only to have it slowly grow dated, not followed by working editors, or not supported over the years.

Probably the best style manual to which I have access from a publisher is that of Westminster John Knox, because it's comprehensive, and the in-house editors enforce it.

And a great style manual if you're interested in the Bible or classical works is the Society of Biblical Literature's, which I originally did not care for, but it's grown on me over the years.

But style sheets for individual books that merely duplicate available sources? Unnecessary. Not worth the time. And often not helpful at all.

THE OLD RELIABLE

Rate Sheet

Note: Different rates may apply for self-publishing or overseas authors.

Copyediting—Take the word count of your manuscript and divide it by 265. That's a billable page. Remember to include footnotes/endnotes in the word count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author: $5+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$5.25+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Substantive editing—See above for determining page count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author—$6.25+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$8+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Higher editing rates apply for material that requires extensive rewriting or that includes complicating elements, such as massive reworking or cross-checking of documentation. Technical manuscripts (legal, medical, etc.) also subject to higher rates.

Contact me for bids on work if English is not your primary written language.

Indexing—Based on a 6x9 page; other page sizes adjusted proportionately

$5+/indexable page

$6+/indexable page for biographies and military histories

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of page proofs

Proofreading—based on a 6x9, one-column page; other page sizes and formats adjusted accordingly

Brushes with Fame

1. An old friend had to remind me of this one, because he remembers more about my life than I do. When I was a youngster, I threw up on Johnny Carson in an NYC theatre. Would have been in the early 1960s. I have no recollection of the event, but from what my mother said, he apparently handled it well.

2. The family went down to Plains, GA, maybe around 2004 to sit in on Jimmy Carter's Sunday school class. Afterward people could line up for a photo op with the president and Mrs. Carter. As we were in line, Tere (my wife) said, "I'm going to give him a kiss." I responded, "Wonderful. I'll catch up with you after Secret Service breaks your kneecaps." As we stepped up to pose with the Carters, my darling wife, never a wallflower, leans over and pecks him on the cheek. He just smiled and said, "Right on!"

4. Internationally acclaimed artist Thornton Dial was bribed fifty dollars to let our family give him a ride home; Birmingham to Bessemer, AL. Dial is justifiably suspicious of white folks he doesn't know; actually, I might have to say that's one thing we have in common. I'm always happy when going to a party to see a good dog to engage in proper conversation.

5. Gave a very drunk John Fahey a ride to an Atlanta airport hotel after a depressing performance, during which he became progressively more wasted on stage and basically just babbled more than playing guitar. Among his comments were that his father-in-law offered to give Fahey some money if his wife (the guy's daughter) would lose some weight. The sight of seeing the slump-shouldered Fahey shuffling into the hotel carrying his guitars haunts me still.

6. Lunch with Jane Fonda at Bulloch House, Warm Springs, GA, the morning after she filed for divorce from Massa Ted. The first time I saw her was when she stepped out of the back of the car she was sleeping in at the home of a folk artist we were both going to see: the Prophet Jesse Marshall. (She had apparently been up all night.) Bulloch House is a southern-style buffet, which La Jane took to right away. No healthy eating there. She was quite angered when they removed her plate from the table while she had stepped away before she had a chance to finish what she'd put on there to begin with. After spending some time with our two boys, she offered to adopt them if ever anything happened to my wife and me.

7. Garrison Keillor rode in my car; spoke with him later at apres-performance dessert party, Abingdon, VA. Keillor was invited (paid) to give a fundraising performance at Barter Theatre, the state theatre of Virginia, where my wife works. They needed a big vehicle to pick up Keillor, so they borrowed my Chevy Tahoe. Quite tall Keillor apparently sat in the way back and spoke on the cell phone the entire time (I was not invited to be in the car to pick him up). For a while we could say that our car had his DNA in it, but then we traded it in on a Prius, which gets 48 miles a gallon -- a whole lot better value than having a car where Garrison Keillor once sat. He was very nice after his performance, though -- apparently totally against type. I told him that A Prairie Home Companion used to save my Saturday nights in the early '80s when I was working at the printing plant.

8. Physically bumped into Jack Nicholson upstairs at Sardi's -- the famous Broadway theatre district bar -- 1977; the occasion was an "audition" (that is, a fundraiser) for a play that some folks were trying to get produced. The playwright and composer and two of the leads they had cast were there performing all the songs. Maybe 20 people were there, sitting in folding chairs gathered around the piano. One of the songs was a little ditty called "Tomorrow." The play ended up being Annie. Why, as a 17-year-old, I was invited to this gig is far less interesting, but one of the oddities of my life.

9. A very slight brush. Back around 1978 when I was in college, some friends and I traveled from Atlanta to Huntsville, AL, because, before transferring to school in Atlanta, one of my friends had been instrumental in arranging for Hunter S. Thompson to give a talk at the University of Alabama at Huntsville campus. Because of my friend’s remaining connections at the UAH campus, we knew when Thompson’s plane would be arriving, so we prepared ourselves properly to meet him at the airport—kind of the unofficial welcoming party. So we are positioned in the concourse and see Dr. Thompson’s unique stride coming toward us (along with the official welcoming party of two or three students). There are three or four of us unofficial types—longhaired, eyes glazed, and mostly in awe. My friend says in his most cultured tone, “Ah, Dr. Thompson,” at which point we begin genteel applause, as if we are at a ladies’ tea party or piano recital. Thompson takes one frightened look at us and darts into the airport bar. We follow, and take up our spots at the table next to him and his minders, trying to glean what we can from the conversation, which is virtually impossible, because even at his best, Thompson speech is mostly incomprehensible. After about 15 or 20 minutes, Thompson gets up to leave, stops by our table, and says, “Sorry. I thought you were some of Wallace’s boys,” referring to former governor, presidential candidate, and opportunistic segregationist George Wallace. Looking at us, you would have hardly associated us with Wallace supporters, but we were happy for the moment of attention and humor from the good doctor. When we saw him the next day giving his talk for the students, I’m not sure I understood one of every 10 words he said, but as a brush with fame goes, the trip was well worth it.

10. Added starter: Once when I was ushering at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta (early 1980s), I heard the Grateful Dead perform "Let It Be" for their sound check. Deadheads who've listened to thousands of hours of bootleg tapes assure me that the band never played that song. Well, maybe not during a concert, but I know what I saw and heard, performed for about 30 ushers and the guys at the sound board, who seemed to be more occupied with the lines of coke in front of them. Jerry Garcia and Donna Godchaux singing, if you're keeping score at home.

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In a minuteThere is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.--T.S. Eliot